La réduction progressive des formes et des emplois du subjonctif dans les langues romanes en concomitance avec l’extension de l’indicatif :
The Gradual Reduction of Forms and Uses of the Subjunctive Mood in Roman Languages in Conjunction with the Extension of the Indicative Mood

Summary/Abstract: Building on a careful observation of the evolution of Latin language in the framework of Romance languages, where there is a tendency to develop the indicative mood at the expense of the conjunctive, the author seeks to analyze its causes. Starting from here, the author researches the way in which the transition is made, throughout history, from a system X to the following system. If, like the biologist François Jacob, we take into consideration the fact that the systems of living beings are inserted in each other like Russian dolls, the issue that arises for the researcher is, in the psychomechanic analysis of language, knowing how — and why — the transition is made from one Russian doll to another. The author shows that, with a progressive reduction in the use of the conjunctive mood, we are witnessing the transformation of a variable and expressive part of the verbal system into an invariable and not expressive element of structure, “que”, which is complemented by an unspecified form of the verb. Special attention was given to the Romanian language, which has gone farther than the other Romance languages in this reduction of the conjunctive mood, linking the expression in the virtual plane to the conjunction (să – “to”) and the expression in the actual plane to another conjunction (că – “that).

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